


Just Live

by Serene_Quill



Category: In the Flesh (TV), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Discrimination, In the Flesh Fusion, M/M, Minor Character Death, Partially Deceased Syndrome, Post-Season/Series AU, Temporary Character Death, Zombies, but permanent death for the minor characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serene_Quill/pseuds/Serene_Quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you think would happen if you bit me?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Come on, I’m not saying bite me, I’m saying, you know, what if?”</p><p>“The world is not ready for a zombie werewolf.”</p><p>-or-</p><p>A Teen Wolf/In the Flesh Fusion - the Rising, as it happened in Beacon Hills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Live

**Author's Note:**

> A Teen Wolf/In the Flesh Fusion probably no one ever needed, inspired by this fantastic fanart: http://redandbluesterek.tumblr.com/post/94183377661/i-watched-in-the-flesh-haha-this-was-what-happend.
> 
>  
> 
> Title absolutely yoinked from Keaton Henson’s “You” because zombie feels. It gives me so many.

-2009- 

They’d gotten complacent, Scott admitted to himself, fighting to keep his claws sheathed as he dropped his head into his hands, focusing on his breathing and the quiet twilight sounds around him, trying hard not to vomit. 

Derek had been concerned when they found the body at the edge of the preserve, clearly a werewolf kill, but Scott had shrugged it off. They could handle one omega, after everything. After the nogitsune, after the benefactor and the hordes of assassins that mess had rained down on Beacon Hills. After Kate and Peter’s unholy alliance, where the pair used Malia to trick Braeden into sacrificing Morrell which resulted in her becoming a vessel for a demi-god that had nearly torn the entire town apart.

One omega shouldn’t have been a problem for their pack.

“Don’t even try, dude,” Stiles had shrugged off Derek’s concern, rolling his eyes. “If I don’t come along and keep an eye on you, you’ll probably end up a shish-kebob. Were-skebob? Shish-kewolf? Hey, Derek, come on, I’m just getting started, how about shish-wolf-kebob?”

Scott really wasn’t sure when Derek’s head shaking over Stiles’ antics had started being accompanied by the faintest hint of a smile and a surprising amount of fondness, but he was laughing at his friends, unconcerned as they traipsed through the woods to the omega’s last reported location.

It hadn’t been an omega, though. The other wolf was an alpha, deliberately luring him out to try to take the true Alpha power, and with it, claim Scott’s pack.  
Scott had been thrown hard into a tree, caught unaware and stunned when it jumped them, but his vision had cleared long enough to see Stiles take the alpha’s claws so deep through his abdomen he was surprised his friend’s spine hadn’t been severed.

Stiles looked shocked, and Derek had whirled, all vicious vengeance and anger, and had torn the alpha’s throat out without hesitating. He had turned back and was helping hold Stiles together before the lifeless wolf even fell to the ground. 

Now, Scott struggled to his feet, breathing deep enough to steady himself before tugging the back door of the veterinary clinic open, rejoining Deaton and Derek inside.

“I’m just not certain,” Deaton admitted, shaking his head at Derek. “The claws went deep, yes, but his heart has stopped.”

“The coroner pronounced on Kate, he’ll shift,” Derek insisted with quiet determination, turning red eyes to meet Scott’s.

“We have to be sure,” Scott agreed, though deep down, he suspected Derek was grasping a thread that resembled denial more than hope. “Is there any sign he might be healing?”

“Nothing I can sense,” Deaton admitted grimly. “But Kate was in the morgue for days before the Calaveras stole her body, and according to what they’ve told you, it was quite some time after that before she fully healed, even with her powers. Claws just aren’t predictable in the same way as the bite.”

“If anyone can do it,” Derek said, voice too soft for Deaton, but Scott caught it, and clamped a hand on the older man’s shoulder, nodding.

“We can sneak him to the morgue,” he started to suggest, but Deaton shook his head.

“Unnecessary, the latest expansion under the clinic includes body coolers,” Deaton grimaced at the look Scott gave him. “It seemed like a prudent investment, never know when we might need to keep someone on ice for a while.”

Scott winced slightly at the reminder of keeping Morrell’s body in an ice chest for several days before using it to test Deaton’s allegiance to the pack. Deaton had passed the test, and later it was Malia who had not. Deaton had always claimed with a cool neutral expression that he understood Scott’s position, but little digs like that seemed to slip into conversation every now and then, to remind Scott that something fundamental had been damaged between them and was slow to repair. 

“He’s bandaged enough to help healing if it does start to happen and enough to easily move him,” Deaton started, and that was apparently permission enough for Derek.

“Call his dad,” Derek told Scott as he carefully scooped Stiles’ body up in his arms. “I’ll finish cleaning him up, so the Sheriff doesn’t see…” his voice choked off, so Scott nodded his understanding.

After calling the Sheriff to the vet’s office, Scott left to check in on the rest of the pack, mostly keen to find Lydia, though he wasn’t sure what he was expecting from the banshee.

It took longer than he had expected to find Lydia, tracking her scent back to the Preserve. Her eyes were wide and unseeing when Scott found her, crouched over the bloodstained grass, shaking helplessly. “He’s gone,” she whimpered when Scott looped a supportive arm around her shoulders. “Scott, he’s gone.”

“Derek thinks… the claws…” Scott tried to explain, and Lydia shook her head a little hysterically. 

“He’s gone,” she repeated, and Scott understood. It rocked his whole soul, hitting him suddenly, realizing it hadn’t just been Derek’s false hope.

“You’re sure?” he asked hoarsely, and Lydia nodded, sniffling. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she kept murmuring as they sat there, summer haze too stifling and silent.

~*~

Scott returned to the clinic, following Deaton’s silent pointed finger to the hidden back stairs and down to the underground level of the clinic. 

Derek and the Sheriff sat on either side of a metal table, Stiles’ body still and quiet between them. Scott shivered, unable to help it, the chill of the room hitting his elevated body temperature hard. “I’m sorry,” he said, even his quiet voice too loud in the silent room. “Lydia says he’s gone.”

“She’s wrong,” Derek snarled weakly, fingers lengthening to claws and scraping the edge of the metal gurney. “She has to be wrong.”

“Scott,” the sheriff’s voice was rough and hoarse. “How sure is she?”

“It’s Lydia,” Scott replied. 

“I don’t care,” Derek said fiercely. “We aren’t burying him until the full moon, not till we’re sure, he can’t be d—”

His voice cracked, and to his horror, Scott thought Derek was about to start crying. There were already tears streaking their way down the sheriff’s face, and Scott could scarcely handle that either. He escaped up the stairs, running werewolf fast and uncaring who saw.

~*~

They buried Stiles in the old cemetery. No one had been buried there since the Hales, and before them, Stiles’ mom. It was in the preserve, less than a kilometer from the now bare foundation that had once been the Hale house.

A week later, Derek began rebuilding the house, a single minded project acting as the dam on a tidal wave of grief.

 

-2010-

 

“That’s the last one,” Scott huffed, tossing one last zombie body onto the pyre. “Did Deaton come up with anything about what could have caused this?”

“He’s got Danny looking into what those who rose had in common, says if he can figure that out, maybe he’ll have an answer. He’s ruled out necromancy though, something about the way they rose,” the sheriff fills Scott in as the rest of the pack and several deputies monitor the fire. “The good news is the kid who got bit, Greenberg? No sign of turning. Whatever this is, it’s not contagious like in the movies.”

“What about the guy they ripped apart before we got here, the caretaker?” Scott asked, and the sheriff shook his head.

“Both Lydia and the coroner confirmed he’s just dead.” The sheriff looks over to where Lydia silently sobbed as she watched the fire. Her connection to the dead was uncanny, but this had been beyond anything Scott had ever seen, a macabre pied piper with her undead followers. Whatever had bound them to her had left her disturbed and upset when they had been put down again. “Whatever these things are, we’re lucky for her connection to them, that they followed her. It could have been much worse.”

Scott opened his mouth to ask about Lydia, but stopped when Danny, tablet in hand, sprinted up, gasping for air as though he’d sprinted through what should have been a marathon. “Figured, figured out,” he wheezed, grabbing hard onto the sheriff’s forearm and tugging. “Got… it’s…”

“Whoa, breathe,” Scott commanded Danny, coaching Danny through a few deep breaths. Danny was still shaking, but his breathing evened quickly.

“There’s only one thing I could find that they all had in common, Sheriff. And it’s not just here, this is happening worldwide. Everywhere. But the ones rising, they all died during 2009.”

It took a moment for Scott to understand why the sheriff had gone green, why Danny was still shaking.

“You sent Derek to check on the old cemetery, right?” the Sheriff demanded, and Scott fumbled, fingers panic-clumsy and barely able to see the screen through the rush of blood pounding behind his eyes. No messages.

“He hasn’t checked in,” Scott gasped, feeling as though his feet were sliding into the cemetery mud and stuck, frozen in place. “He wouldn’t be able… I don’t think he could… if.”

If. The word kept rolling around in his mind as he raced for the street and his bike, Danny on his heels, hopping on the back of the bike before Scott could protest. Scott paused only long enough to clock the sheriff running for his patrol car before he growled at Danny, “Hold on.”

Danny’s too tight arms around his midsection and the faint dampness on his shirt where Danny’s forehead pressed into the hollow between Scott’s shoulder blades felt like they were the only things holding him together. The bike rattled and protested the speed when he whipped off the highway and onto the dirt road that led to the old cemetery. 

The old cemetery was enclosed by a high metal gate that had been overgrown by wolfsbane, planted by Derek’s family, Scott assumed, but it meant he had to run around to the only working gate. The base of the wrought iron posts was heavy, thick slabs of mountain ash wood. Scott probably could have hopped that, but the wolfsbane was some of the most violently corrosive to werewolf skin in existence, and even if the height of the fences hasn’t been a bit of a deterrent alone, the wolfsbane meant he went for the main gate. 

He slowed as he approached it, baffled to see Derek, panting and staring at something just beyond the gate. The gate, usually the only iron clear of the overgrowth of wolfsbane, was hastily covered in blooms that appeared to have been torn down from the very top of the gate. At the base of the gate, Derek had managed to seal the cemetery with mountain ash by triggering the mechanism that slid a final thick bolt in place under the gate.

Just beyond the gate was Stiles.

Not Stiles, he scolded himself fiercely, taking in the inhumanly pale skin and pinprick pupils lost in a hazy cloud of colorless iris. The zombie snarled, lunging toward them but hissing and drawing back when he got too close to the wall of mountain ash and wolfsbane.

“I thought it was just the mountain ash keeping him in, but it’s the combination,” Derek said quietly. Scott turned, taking in the raw, ravaged wounds that turned Derek’s hands and forearms into something resembling ground hamburger.

“You dragged all that in place yourself?” Scott asked, even as he drew the gun he’d borrowed from Argent out of his belt.

“No!” Derek snarled, claws flashing and knocking the gun to the ground before Scott could react. He snarled, and Derek’s eyes flashed red in response. In the six months since Derek had become an alpha again, he’d never once challenged Scott, had been extremely careful to always submit to Scott’s authority. It shocked Scott into stopping cold, giving the sheriff and Lydia time to catch up, bursting into the clearing in surprise.

“Derek,” the sheriff sighed in relief. “You had us worried, son.” He frowned, approaching the gate and staring dumbly at what had once been his son. “He’s… contained?”

“Can’t get past the barriers,” Derek confirmed, turning pleading eyes on Scott. “Deaton can reinforce the barriers, make sure he can’t escape.”

“It’s not him,” Scott snarled, shaking his head. “Dammit, Derek, it’s not!”

“We should get Deaton,” the sheriff said softly, voice filled with doubt. The zombie watched him back, pinprick eyes hungrily following his father’s moves.

“What do you think will happen if you go in there? Sheriff, you say what happened earlier, with the others,” Scott demanded, knowing it was cruel, but suddenly he was back six months earlier, Derek and the sheriff refusing to leave Stiles’ body, sitting in vigil and refusing to bury him for over a week. “It isn’t Stiles!”

“It could be,” a surprising voice piped in, and Scott turned to look at Lydia. She sidled up to the gate, examining the zombie carefully. Just like she had with the zombies in the main cemetery, she extended her hand, reaching over the barriers and touching her fingertips to Stiles’ cheek. It allowed her, didn’t react. “There’s something there, Scott.”

Scott stared at her, incredulous. “No, Lydia,” he said softly. “It’s like the others, your powers giving it something more.”

“Then we’re not killing him because we need to study them,” Lydia retorted sharply, whirling on Danny. “You said it’s everywhere, right? Maybe we can stop this.”

“The house is all but finished, and anyone who wants to take shifts keeping watch over him can stay there,” Derek told Scott. “I’ll watch him whenever I’m awake if it means you won’t kill him. Not again, Scott.”

“I’ll help, son,” the Sheriff said, finally unfrozen and moving again. “Scott… you believed Lydia when she told us he was dead, and she was right. I have to put my faith there again.”

“If he gets out, hurts anyone, I’ll have to put him down,” Scott objected, praying someone would hear the pleading he couldn’t actually say aloud. He wasn’t certain he could pull that trigger, and if they kept waiting, more and more doubt would creep in. 

“You have room for me?” Danny asked Derek, apparently not hearing Scott. “I’ll help.”

“We’ll save him,” Lydia told Scott in a soft, conspiratorial whisper. He tore his arm away from the hand she reached out to him, the same one she’d just soothed the zombie with, and took off running, shifting as he hit the tree line and losing himself to a mindless run, letting the wolf voice his grief instead.

 

-2011-

 

“I could have gone on my own,” Melissa protested, sliding the cooler out of the back seat and flicking an exasperated eye roll in Scott’s direction.

“Mom, no,” he said firmly, tucking one of Argent’s guns into his belt, in addition to the second in his ankle holster. “You’re not coming out here, being around one of those things, without me.”

Chris Argent had received reports from a number of hunters, forming bands to stop zombies before they killed again - in the UK they were the Human Volunteer Force, in France, the Armée de le Vivant. Here in the US, they were the Human Liberation Front. Argent had found it amusing to refer to Scott and Liam as human in that context, but he armed them and put them to work all the same.

“Kiddo, you know, I was taking care of myself for quite a long time before you became the big bad alpha,” Melissa remarked dryly, waving at Lydia, who Scott saw was perched on top of what appeared to be a spacious hunting stand overlooking the cemetery. He’d only come out a handful of times, to check the wolfsbane and mountain ash were secure, only looking past the gate long enough to reassure himself the zombie was contained inside still. Clearly, it had been longer than he thought, given the construction he’d been clueless about.

“What is…?” he asked helplessly as Melissa swung herself up the ladder easily, greeting Lydia with a warm hug.

“Derek built it for us,” Lydia explained, and once he’d swung himself up, Scott could see four comfy lounge chairs set up and looking out over the cemetery. Stiles sat next to the open pit that used to be his grave, strangely docile. “Much more comfortable for keeping watch,” she said, sounding strangely pleased by the whole thing. 

“So, Danny filled me in on your experiment, and you got lucky,” Melissa informed Lydia. “Not just parts, over time, I got you a whole one.”

“You want to fill me in now?” Scott asked, and Lydia shrugged, opening the cooler to reveal a number of glass specimen containers.

“Oh, you got it bisected to my specifications,” Lydia cooed excitedly. “Melissa McCall, you are the best.”

She drew out a container, and Scott felt himself pale. The substance inside was greyish and flecked with red, spongy… “Is that… brains?” he asked weakly, and Lydia murmured affirmatively.

“What do you think we’ve been feeding him?” she asked, rolling her eyes at him. “Mostly squirrel or rabbit when Derek catches them, or sheep and cow from the butcher shop on Main. Once we got a couple of pounds of monkey brains. That’s what inspired this experiment.”

“What.” Scott couldn’t even voice the question, feeling dizzy. 

“This is a human parietal lobe, to be specific,” Lydia explained. “I suspect we’re looking for brain stem chemicals, but neuroscience would dictate the parietal lobe as the most likely source of his brain chemistry deficiency. So we’re starting observations there.”

“You got her a human brain?” Scott yelped, sitting down in one of the lounge chairs before he fell over.

“Mrs. Hanover donated her body to science,” Melissa replied, utterly undisturbed by what was happening.

“This isn’t your first time out here, is it?” Scott asked suspiciously, and Melissa offered him a wry smile.

“I’ve never brought human brains out here before, honey,” she replied maddeningly, the statement absolutely true and leaving Scott unable to call her on lying to him.

Lydia, meanwhile, had picked up a modified long lacrosse stick, emptying the brain tissue into the makeshift bowl affixed to the end of the stick. She lowered it to Stiles, who scrambled to it. For one brief moment, Scott could imagine Stiles grabbing the stick and dragging Lydia down off the stand, but he ran straight to the stick and began carefully picking the brains out, chomping down happily. Once the bowl was empty, he ambled off again, and Lydia returned the stick to the hooks on the wall of the watch stand, picked up her tablet and began making notes.

“We’ll be here observing for quite some time,” Lydia informed Scott as Melissa settled in with her, obviously planning to join in the watch. “If you want to go in and see Derek.”

Scott scowled and climbed out of the stand and instead went to check the cemetery boundaries and wander the woods. He hadn’t spoken with Derek since the day the other alpha had challenged him about keeping the zombie Stiles in containment.

 

-2012-

 

Derek climbed up to the tower, surprised to find Kira, arms folded over her chest, body shaking slightly in the cold wind that was quickly falling from fall into winter. “So there’s a drug now,” she said without preamble. “In a week or so, you’ll start giving him medicine and he’s going to get better. He’ll be alive.”

“That’s what Halperin and Westin claim,” Derek agreed warily, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It matches where Lydia was headed with her research.”

“If we hadn’t…” she blinked hard, struggling with tears. “My mom was in the new cemetery.”

“I know,” Derek said softly, letting the kitsune huddle closer to him, waiting.

“Derek, why did we…” Kira dissolved into tears, tucking her face under his leather jacket and crying into his burgundy sweater.

The pack had taken care of the threat, Derek mused silently while he let her mourn. It was what they did. Except for him.

Below them, Stiles shuffled closer, pinprick eyes hungry and hoping for food. Derek usually brought him something.

~*~ 

“Neurotriptyline,” Lydia sighed happily, holding onto Stiles as he jerked in flashback, slowly coming back to himself. “According to the guidelines, we can move you out of containment at the end of the week if your progress holds steady.”

The cemetery had changed drastically since the start of Stiles’ treatments – a pup tent, a bed roll, books—a veritable living space slowly taking over the space between headstones, but Lydia could hardly wait to get him up into the house. She’d gone overboard on getting his room ready, the sheriff carefully unpacking all of Stiles’ belongings into the room and smiling faintly at her efforts. She wasn’t sure if it was relief that her friend was back or some lingering bond between his partially deceased state and her banshee abilities, but the protective instincts she had for Stiles were fierce.

Stiles gasped, nodding at her encouraging look. “Sure, Lyds,” he agreed, looking up to the tall stand where Scott was standing silent and distant, climbing down and vanishing from sight as soon as he was apparently satisfied. “Is he ever going to believe it’s me?”

“It’ll be easier when you start using the cover up mousse and contacts, I think,” Lydia replied with a shrug. “Maybe he’ll be able to see you again.”

“And Derek?” Stiles asked, sighing when Lydia tried too hard, smiled too bright. “Lydia, in all my flashbacks, it’s him, reading to me, watching over me. Why is he gone now that I’m back?”

She sighed as well, petting his hair gently. “Men are idiots, sweetheart,” she teased him gently. Stiles gave her a blank look and she sighed, sobering. “Stiles, when you… when that Alpha… Derek went a little off the rails. He’s just got some things to figure out now that you’re back.”

“I’m tired,” Stiles murmured, giving Lydia an out so he could have some quiet time.

“Get some rest,” she told him, watching as he curled up on the bed roll, eyes on the watch tower. If he imagined hard enough, he could picture Derek, laying at the wooden edge of the tower, watching him with too soft eyes, just like he had in his flashback.

~*~

“I look like a freak,” Stiles announced, flouncing down at the kitchen table. Lydia looked up, snickering quietly at his poor attempts to apply the mousse. Even Derek’s lips tugged upward in a hint of a smile as his dad and Danny chuckled into their hands. “So I’m thinking,” he bit his lip, looking around the table. “If no one minds, I’m not gonna wear the mousse and contacts if I’m not going out.”

The table was silent, and Stiles barely dared to look up. When he did, Lydia was smiling soft encouragement at him, while his dad looked proud and Danny just nodded solemnly and supportive. He looked to Derek last, and the werewolf cleared his throat. “No one should be anything they aren’t here,” he said gruffly. “It’s your home too.”

If he’d had blood to make him flush, Stiles knew he’d be tomato red at that. “Thanks,” he managed to say.

“That mousse smells like fish crap anyway,” Derek added, making the group groan and laugh. 

“Freakin’ werewolf sense of smell,” Stiles groaned, filching a strip of bacon from Derek’s plate.

“You can’t even eat that,” Derek protested, making a face when Stiles licked it from end to end.

“Still love the taste,” Stiles replied before dropping it back on Derek’s plate. 

“Thanks,” Derek said dryly.

~*~

“What do you think would happen if you bit me?”

“No.”

“Come on, I’m not saying bite me, I’m saying, you know, what if?”

“The world is not ready for a zombie werewolf.”

“Hey, did any werewolves rise? Derek, come on, this is important, for science!”

~*~

Stiles glared at the bright orange vest in the PDS Community Service Compliance Monitor’s hands. “I’m sorry,” he repeated through gritted teeth. “You’ll have to speak with my superior officer.”

“Deputy,” his dad greeted him as he entered the room, frowning as he took in the scene before him. “Are we doing this again, Mr. Morris?”

“Deputy Stilinski is supposed to be wearing one of these vests at all times while on duty,” the squat, balding man insisted. “I still object to the idea of him serving the community with a badge and a gun, so it’s even more important that he allow the community to process that he is—”

“Uniform code trumps your program, Morris, as I’ve mentioned before,” his dad interrupted the compliance officer. “I’ve absolutely forbidden him from wearing it on duty. Interestingly, I noticed you failed to appropriately update Deputy Stilinski’s records to reflect last week’s overtime, and also, that you’ve assessed a dollar amount for public property damage owed to his file as well. Since you seemed to have overlooked it, I updated your bosses with the affidavits I provided from multiple upstanding citizens confirming that the correct amount on file should be zero. Deputy Stilinski was confined from the time of his rising to the minute his Neurotriptyline dosage was certified as stable.”

“The damage to the old cemetery,” Morris began, and Stiles smirked as his dad continued in the same even, easy tone. 

“Was on private property and that citizen has declined remuneration, and designated this station and this job as Deputy Stilinski’s community service if it had to be served at all.” His dad finally allowed a smirk to slip through. “Mr. Morris, you have a number of other counties that might be better served by your oversight. After all, Beacon Hills just has Deputy Stilinski here.”

Morris stormed toward the exit as Deputy Parrish entered, raising an eyebrow at the much shorter man when he huffed in Parrish’s direction. Apparently thinking better of whatever he’d been about to say, Morris slammed the door behind him with extra effort. “He really was parked illegally this time,” Parrish insisted automatically, and Stiles couldn’t help smiling. 

 

-2013-

 

Scott left the porch, and Stiles pretended not to notice the tears his friend wiped away as he melted into the darkness of the preserve. His own eyes burned a little, but he suspected it was from the contacts as much as his own unshed tears.

“Getting better?” Derek asked, startling Stiles as he dropped into the porch swing next to Stiles. 

“I think so,” Stiles agreed, shifting slightly so he could rest his head in the crook of Derek’s elbow where the werewolf had stretched it down the back of the swing. They were quiet for a long time, the swing gently swaying and Stiles relaxing as he watched his friend in the waxing moonlight. 

“I sometimes wonder which is worse, being the one who had no faith or the one who had too much,” he said softly, and Derek instantly started to stand, apparently determined to run away from this conversation once again, but Stiles grabbed on, fingers clenching in the well-worn black fabric of Derek’s Henley. They’d been dancing around this, dancing around each other, for so long, that Stiles wasn’t sure either of them knew how to stop. But it was a night for trying.

“Derek, he’s my brother and he wanted to put me down. Why did you stop him?”

Derek settled back, lifting his eyebrows in surprise at Stiles. “You really going to make me talk about this?” he asked.

Stiles waited, not letting go, and Derek slumped, apparently conceding. He was silent for a long time, and Stiles, for all his usual babbling, couldn’t think of a way to break it and not send Derek running again. So he waited. 

“I guess I’m just not good at letting go,” Derek admitted, shrugging. “I just couldn’t let you go,” he repeated finally, only looking at Stiles when the younger man reached out, cupping his face and forcing his gaze.

“Can I kiss you?” Stiles asked, hating the way his voice trembled uncertainly. “I’d really like to.”

“No,” Derek replied, and Stiles felt his heart crash, lungs suddenly failing to draw air he didn’t need anyway.

“Oh,” he mumbled, struggling to his feet before Derek could say anything more, mouth open to undoubtedly let Stiles down easy. “No, I mean, no, of course you wouldn’t want—”

“Stiles!” Derek grabbed onto his arm, stopping him short. “I didn’t mean no, I meant…” The werewolf hesitated, then dragged his thumb down Stiles’ cheek, showing Stiles the mousse he’d just pulled off. “I just meant, not while you’re like this. I want to kiss you, the real you.”

“Oh!” Stiles grinned, tugging Derek with him toward the bathroom. “Yeah okay,” he said as he fumbled for a washcloth and the makeup remover, but Derek stopped him, taking the cloth in his own hands and slowly stripping away the cover up. 

“Look up,” Derek told him gently, then slowly and carefully wiping away the mousse from Stiles’ cheekbones and under his eyes. He handed the washcloth back to Stiles once he was done, and Stiles finished the last bits on his eyelids himself before finding his contact lens case and removing those as well.

“There,” Stiles said, satisfied. “Just me again.”

“You’re perfect,” Derek whispered, leaning in and pressing their lips together in a soft, chaste touch. He pulled back, watching, and Stiles couldn’t help touching his lips as they curled up into a smile.

 

-2014-

 

“Come to bed?”

Stiles shivered as Derek’s too warm hand, body temperature elevated well above normal by his wolf, rubbed against his collarbone, too cool from his own partially deceased state. “Sorry, I just got to obsessing again.” He closed the laptop, letting Derek help him to his feet.

“Were you on that kook’s website again?” Derek grumbled.

“The undead prophet may be a kook, but he’s a reliable source for news about other undead around the world,” Stiles reminded Derek for what he thought could literally be the hundredth time.

“It always upsets you,” Derek pointed out. “I hate people, I hate the way you’re treated, and I hate anything that upsets you.”

“Love you too,” Stiles replied, climbing into bed and kissing Derek gently on the tip of his nose. Derek as always leaned in and closed it in a real kiss before tugging Stiles into his arms.

“Derek?” Stiles asked into the quiet darkness. When Derek made a soft, questioning noise, Stiles asked, “What time did I rise? Do you know?”

“A little before 4 in the afternoon,” Derek replied sleepily. 

“You sure?” Stiles couldn’t help asking, numbers and time changes flitting through his mind.

“I looked at the message from Scott after you were contained, just after 4,” Derek yawned. “Not that I needed it to know something was going on, I had just watched you rise. So it kinda stays in the memory. Why?”

“No reason,” he lied. The cryptic warning to all those who may have been among the first to rise, a warning about killers and second risings that he’d found on the message boards on the undead prophet’s site, wouldn’t leave his mind so easily though. Before midnight, in the UK, it had claimed. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said reassuringly.

Without a heartbeat, it was easier to lie to Derek, but given the way Derek’s arms tightened ever so slightly around his chest, Stiles didn’t think he’d gotten away with it this time.

**Author's Note:**

> I know TW is set later than indicated, but only one of these two shows actually has a coherent timeline, so the one that can’t even decide how old people are got hijacked in favor of the established one. :)


End file.
